This post is part of my paper ‘The Evolving Role of Creativity in Brand Management’. You can see the table of contents here. The previous parts touched on brand definitions, brand management paradigms, the challenges facing brand management, and how a systems theory based approach would mean for learning, planning and capabilities.
At the heart of a successful brand is a great product or service, backed by creatively designed and executed marketing.
(Kotler & Keller 2006, p.273)
As Kotler and Keller put it, “creatively designed and executed marketing” is needed to build a successful brand. There are however, apart from the quote, no mentions or systematic definitions of creativity in Kotler (2006), Keller (1998), or as an example for a German textbook Schweiger & Schrattenecker (2009).
What does creativity mean in the context of designing and executing marketing? How can it be applied, what are its effects along the brand management process and what facilitates or hinders “creatively design and executed marketing”?
While creativity has always been a topic of heated debate in the advertising discourse, advertising is only a part of brand management. The following chapters therefore suggest a categorisation of different types of perspectives on creativity in brand management and try to give an overview of the debate and research in each of the different fields.
3.1 What Is Creativity?
Before looking into aspects of creativity in brand management, its general meaning should be defined. However, according to Schmidt (1988, p.35 qtd. in Zurstiege 2005, p.181) creativity is a notoriously universally used and notoriously vaguely defined expression, that has seen so many meanings that Zurstiege (2005, p.182) calls the quest to find out about what creativity is a hopeless endeavour. This however, would leave the meaning of a widely used concept in business practice to changing fads and fashions and may also leave valuable insights untouched. Therefore, it is tried here to find a definition or at least a useful conceptualisation of creativity.
Merriam-Webster Dictionary and the Encyclopedia Britannica provide a first hint:
Create, to make or bring into existence something new; to produce through imaginative skill.
(Merriam-Webster Dictionary 2011)
Creativity, the ability to make or otherwise bring into existence something new, whether a new solution to a problem, a new method or device, or a new artistic object or form.
(Britannica Online Encyclopedia 2011)
From this definitions of creating and creativity, it can be derived that creativity has two distinct features: “First, there must be something new, imaginative, different, or unique – this component is generally referred to as ‘divergence’. Second, the divergent thing produced must solve a problem or have some type of ‘relevance’” (Smith & Yang 2004, p.32).
As seen above, creativity viewed from this perspective is defined as a function of divergence and relevance. First, to be creative, something has to be divergent, then it has to be shaped to be somehow perceived as relevant, i.e. it has to be useful, help to achieve a goal or be somehow socially valued. This position is reflected both in research on creativity in psychology as well as in research on creativity in the field of advertising (Smith & Yang 2004, p.34).
With divergence and relevance made out as the two most prominent determinants of creativity, this still leaves open questions regarding the what and who of creativity. What is it that is creative in brand management? And who is it that is creative?
Theories of creativity have considered different aspects of creativity as an answer to this question, with the most prominent referred to as the four “Ps” (Kozbelt et al. 2010, p.25ff).
Contrary to marketing textbook definitions, the 4 Ps of creativity refer to process, product, person and place. Process research focuses on the mechanisms and techniques for creative thinking. Research focusing on product is usually carried out to measure the level of creativity in ideas. The person perspective looks more general into creative people’s personality and cognitive traits. Last but not least, research highlighting place considers the contextual variables which determine how creativity will best flourish.
In line with these four fields of creativity research, this paper will look into four different aspects of creativity in brand management:
- Process
- Creativity as a tool
- Product
- Creativity as a feature of advertising
- Creativity as a feature of strategy
- Person
- Creativity as a trait of stakeholders
- Place
- Creativity as the feature of an organisation
Table 2: Different Roles of Creativity in Brand Management
The process view of creativity may be used to shed light on the use of thinking styles, creativity techniques and in general the process of coming up with what Kotler and Keller (2006, p.273) called “creatively designed” marketing.
The product view of creativity leads to looking into two of the most relevant outputs of the brand management system, namely creativity in advertising – or more general marketing communication – executions and creativity in marketing and communication strategy.
The person view of creativity in brand management leads one to ask about creativity as a trait of different stakeholders identified in the brand management system. This perspective might for example ask for the levels of creativity in brand managers who steer the brand, agency teams that are co-responsible for brand and campaign planning and executions and consumers as the audience or users of brand(ed) content.
Furthermore, a place perspective on creativity in brand management deals with the meaning and determinants of creativity on an organisational level. To reflect the different priorities in advertising and brand management research the review will start with the product view of creativity and will then continue with the findings on process, person and place.
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Britannica Online Encyclopedia, 2011. creativity — Britannica Online Encyclopedia. Britannica Online Encyclopedia. Available at: http://www.britannica.com/EBchecked/topic/142249/creativity [Accessed January 23, 2011].
Keller, K.L., 1998. Strategic brand management: building, measuring and managing brand equity, Prentice Hall.
Kotler, P. & Keller, K.L., 2006. Marketing Management 12th ed., Prentice Hall.
Kozbelt, A., Beghetto, R.A. & Runco, M.A., 2010. Theories of Creativity. In J. C. Kaufman & R. J. Sternberg, eds. The Cambridge Handbook of Creativity. Cambridge University Press.
Merriam-Webster Dictionary, 2011. Create – Definition and More from the Free Merriam- 65 Webster Dictionary. Merriam-Webster Dictionary. Available at: http://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/create [Accessed January 23, 2011].
Smith, R.E. & Yang, X., 2004. Toward a general theory of creativity in advertising: Examining the role of divergence. Marketing Theory, 4(1-2), p.31.
Schmidt, S.J., 1988. Kreativität – aus der Beobachterperspektive. In N. Luhmann & H. U. Gumbrecht, eds. Kreativität, ein verbrauchter Begriff? W. Fink, pp. 33-51.
Schweiger, G. & Schrattenecker, G., 2009. Werbung 7th ed., UTB, Stuttgart.
Zurstiege, G., 2005. Zwischen Kritik und Faszination. Was wir beobachten, wenn wir die Werbung beobachten, wie sie die Gesellschaft beobachtet 1st ed., Halem.